The tragedy of people being trapped on the upper floors of tall buildings, unable to be helped or to escape from the mortal dangers of fire, smoke, poisonous fumes and the like, occurs all too frequently. Innumerable lives might be saved by having available a simple-to-use device which would permit a person to lift a child over, or to climb himself over the ledge of a high window and to be lowered safely to the ground at an automatically controlled rate of speed. Even more lives might be saved if the mechanism could be restored for subsequent escape and descent by another from the same window.
It is the principal object of this invention to provide just such a life-saving apparatus which is safe, easy to use, practical, inexpensive, adjustable for mounting on any window ledge and collapsible for convenient storage.